Mario Kart 8 Might Have Just Saved the WiiU
posted Saturday Jun 28, 2014 by Nicholas DiMeo
Nintendo has not been doing well in this generation's console battle and has suffered huge financial losses as a result. Even last week the company lost a huge patent battle overseas that will likely have Nintendo further in the hole. Many people asked what Nintendo could do to bring itself back into better times and apparently the answer was Mario Kart.
Mario Kart 8, the game that cemented the Nintendo64 as one of the best consoles ever and the game that won our hearts as kids, sold over 2 million copies in less than a month for the WiiU. This essentially revived the Wii U as a console entirely as the latest Nintendo hardware has seen more use in the past month than in the past three months combined. What's key here is that this number represents the total amount of units actually sold through to the customer.
In the shareholder meetings, Nintendo went on to announce that Mario Kart 8 sold 1.2 million copies in the first week alone and even helped console sales because of its popularity. Nintendo America's President Reggie Fils-Aime said that Wii U sales have quadrupled during the first week of Mario Kart 8's release. We currently sit at 6.17 million WiiUs sold, but that figure is from exactly two months before the Mario-driven battle franchise hit shelves on May 30th.
Nintendo exec Scott Moffitt even said that the sales have been so monumental that it almost feels like the Nintendo 3DS revival, except Nintendo isn't slashing prices with this one. To give you some contrast, it took Super Mario 3d World a little over four months to reach 2 million sold worldwide and Nintendo's top seller on the Wii U, New Super Mario Bros. U sold just a bit over 4 million as of April 1st.
Could this be the game that finally brings Nintendo back to its glory days? I know the game makes me want to go pick up a Wii U myself, but how about you? Let us know in the comments section below.
